Attorney Jonathan Mitchell has made a career of trying to erode hard-fought rights under the guise of constitutional literalism, and now that Roe v.
Wade has fallen, he has his sights set on PrEP access.Mitchell, the former solicitor general who helped write Texas’ so-called “bounty-hunter” abortion law, opened up his own private firm in 2018 to target several of the High Court’s rulings.The Dallas Morning News reports that Mitchell’s approach has always been dismantling decisions on the argument that the rulings stray from the Constitution’s language when it was written, as opposed to the idea that document is a “living” thing that must adapt to modern knowledge.
The Supreme Court seems to be drinking the same 235-year-old Kool-Aid .And now Mitchell, who clerked under the late, archconservative Antonin Scalia, is pushing to limit access to drugs Descovy and Truvada — two medications that help prevent HIV transmission when taken as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis.The suit states open access to the life-saving meds “enables homosexual behavior.”Related: Texas GOP declares homosexuality an “abnormal lifestyle choice”In Kelley v.
the United States of America, filed in federal court in 2020, Mitchell is representing clients who say they shouldn’t be forced to provide Descovy and Truvada under the Affordable Care Act.“The PrEP mandate forces religious employers to provide coverage for drugs that facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity, and intravenous drug use,” the lawsuit states.